Today, Megan’s Law requires that law enforcement authorities make sexual offenders’ personal information – which often times includes name, address, picture, crime and length of prison sentence – available to the public. Individual states vary in the amount of information they make available, the restrictions they impose upon sexual offenders, and the years they require sexual offenders to be registered. In theory, this pattern of laws is meant to inform residents if a sexual offender is living in their midst, so as to deter possible repeat crimes through awareness and vigilance.
In practice, this law is faulty, argues Roger Lancaster, anthropologist and director of Mason’s cultural studies PhD program, and author of the new book, “Sex Panic and the Punitive State.”
In the book, Lancaster argues that such lawmaking is susceptible to the influence of what he calls, “sex panic,” a situation – stemming from the reaction to a heinous sexual crime – in which the public and media outlets create a perception that society is in a state of jeopardy and imminent danger. These situations, he says, lead to overreaching, spur-of-the-moment lawmaking, which does not deter sexual crimes.
“Panics generally last only a short time, but the laws and institutions they leave in their wake can last for decades, if not longer,” Lancaster said. “Reactive laws are overly broad in scope. In this situation, someone did commit a crime of an outrageous sort, but the outrage that gets stirred by the endless repetition of the story in media circuits magnifies the sense of danger beyond reasonable proportions. This causes the public to treat minor offenders not as ‘nuisances’ but as genuine perils to society.”
Lancaster has received tremendous recognition from the book.
The American Anthropological Association’s Association for Queer Anthropology recently awarded Lancaster the 2011 Ruth Benedict Book Prize in the “Outstanding Monograph” category for his work on “Sex Panic and the Punitive State.” The prize is meant to recognize excellence in anthropological issues relevant to LGBTQ studies. Lancaster took part in a detailed Washington Post interview, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times and took to the airwaves for a radio interview with WGN.
Lancaster spent three years working on an issue that is both sensitive and important to the public.
“Crimes provoke reactions,” he said. “And the relationship between law and taboo is a very deep-seated one. We are always struggling between punitive approaches to law on the one side and dispassionate, reasonable, measured approaches on the other.”
“It would seem that modern communication techniques and modern political techniques are constantly stoking the taboo side of law.”
According to the Association for Queer Anthropology, Lancaster’s newest work does more than address fears and laws concerning the aftermath of sexual crime, instead, attempting to tackle the very foundations of moral panic.
The press release states: “Instead of the need to constantly rehearse our injuries our fear and our terror, Lancaster exhorts us to take a breath, examine the facts, and after we have allowed grief to do its work, begin to forget. In this way, “Sex Panic and the Punitive State” challenges the way a state of panic becomes the normal state of affairs.”
Thumbnail image courtesy of Creative Services, George Mason University.